


And the Gods Hitched a Ride

by rainier_day



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-10-26 05:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17739665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainier_day/pseuds/rainier_day
Summary: Fleeing from the Hunger, the Starblaster brings along some unexpected guests





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Taako notices, they're in the strange mushroom land. The back of his neck prickles with the sense of eyes staring right at him. The feeling causes him to whirl around and he thinks he sees something only for it to disappear behind a large mushroom stem. With spores in the air and already limited visibility in their hideous suits, he looks again.

Nothing.

Without anything else to go on, he chalks it up to a trick of the mind.

Eight years in and finally succumbing to hallucinations.

It's tragic, really.

But then again, they're in a place with human-sized mushroom beings, so maybe that figure he saw in the distance was just a particularly nosy inhabitant.

He nudges his sister, who turns around. “What's up?”

“Need some perception here,” he says, gesturing for her to get closer.

“Sure. I am _perceiving_ that this whole outfit is not working on you, babe,” Lup says without missing a beat.

Taako huffs and waves her off. “Please, we both know I'm rocking this suit. But that's not it, can you see anything over there?”

It's their eighth run and he's seen his fair share of inexplicable dangers. He likes to think it's honed his Taako senses a little but it’s always nice to get some confirmation. Lup leans forward and raises a hand up to block out what little glare managed to filter through the haze of spores. After scanning the distance, she shakes her head. “I don't see anything, Taako.”

He mimics her gesture and sees that she's right. Whatever figure might've been standing there has vanished. “Guess it got intimidated by my gaze, obvs, and fled.”

Even through her clunky suit, he can feel his sister's sarcastic smile. “Sure, bro bro, whatever you say.”

\--

The tingles happen again another three cycles in. After roaming through vast and empty planes for two years back to back, the sight of civilization and _life_ is a welcomed sight.

Standing on the deck of the Starblaster, he's holding his sister's hand as they wait for the others to return from their diplomacy mission. Davenport is at the helm, ready to fly off at a moment's notice should the indigenous beings turn hostile.

Eleven cycles in and they've come to learn that the crew are, in a sense, expendable while the ship is not.

The gaze he feels on him comes and goes quickly this time, barely giving him enough time to register it.

Turning his head, he sees movement in the distance by the trees.

And a hole?

Taako blinks and it's gone.

“Hey, you okay?”

He looks again to see nothing amiss.

Squeezing Lup's hand, he shrugs. “Yeah, Lup, nothing wrong here.”

Suddenly, she's in his face. “Taako. Tell me. I know your goofing face and that wasn’t your goofing face.”

Unable to deny his sister, he sighs, “Fine, I thought I saw that figure again. The one from that mushroom land?”

Lup frowns and looks around, going so far as to lean over the railing and narrowing her eyes to scan the trees. “Are you sure?”

“No, that's why I said it wasn’t a big deal. It was probably nothing at all.”

She doesn't look convinced but drops it. “Alright, but if you see it again, tell me, okay? We can figure this out together.”

Taako nods, heart warmed by her words. “Yeah, that sounds good, Lup. You got it.”

Later, when they're all invited into the town for food and hospitality, he'll ask the mayor about their scouts only to find the town completely devoid of any military or strategic defences.

Even later yet, they'll fly away empty-handed and solemn.

The sight of the Hunger devouring entire systems isn't a sight he can ever forget. Although he can shrug it off easier than most of the others, he can't _forget_.

\--

“There must be people _somewhere_ around here!” Magnus says, rushing ahead.

Taako is less convinced.

On the Starblaster, Lucretia had spotted all the signs of civilization from above yet they still haven't found a single village, town, or city in sight. His feet hurt and all he can see is sand, more sand, and the occasional rock.

“Hey, Magnus, my pal? My dude?” he calls out, coming to a stop. “Taako rolled a two for constitution here.”

“I rolled a critical fail,” Lup chimes in.

It's an inside joke between him and his sister from one of their favourite con games, but the rest of the crew seem to have figured out the gist of it after 23 years.

Magnus glances back and slows down. “Sorry, it just doesn't make any sense.”

Trailing even further behind, Lup is dragging her feet in a half-hearted attempted to catch up. And behind her, Merle has his bible in hand and is asking for directions from Pan seemingly to no avail. Wiping the sweat off his brow, Taako and Magnus exchange looks as they wait for the other two to catch up. It's during this time that he notices that familiar feeling of being watched.

Frowning, he lifts his head and catches movement out of the corner of his eye.

It's that black figure again.

Instead of lingering and crawling into a hole or darting off somewhere, it seems to fade into the ground this time.

Taako holds out a hand to stop Lup and Merle from walking past them. “Hang on, my dudes. Moment of inspiration here. What if?”

The others look up with equally baffled expressions. “What if what?”

“We’ve done a fly by and this place looks flat and empty as fuck and not at all hospitable but Lucretia says there should be people, right?” he says, pacing excitedly. “What if we haven't seen anyone on the surface because they're _below_ us?”

Merle and Magnus exchange glances before pulling out their Stone of Far Speech to ask for a subsurface scan of the area, only properly crediting him with the idea when he arches a brow.

(He may have gotten a hint but it's still technically _his_ idea.)

There's a long pause as the remaining crew carry out the request and then suddenly, Barry is whooping in delighted surprise. “We've got a hit, guys!”

The four of them are guided to an entrance way—a large hole in the ground hidden with illusion magic. After a quick dispel, the four of them come face to face with what looks like an endless drop into the earth. Not one to jump down into the abyss unprepared, he's about to cast Feather Fall but Merle beats him to it, tripping over his own feet and falling in.

Luckily, something inside the hole seems to catch the cleric before he can plummet to his death (again) and gently lowers him down until he's out of sight.

Taako looks over at Magnus, who shrugs and jumps in after the dwarf without hesitation.

He sighs and is about to try another hand at casting Feather Fall when Lup latches onto his arm and pulls him into the hole with an excited whoop.

At the bottom, they find themselves standing in a cavern and met by spearheads in their faces, held by armoured dwarves, halflings, and gnomes.

Magnus immediately tries to play up his rustic hospitality and smiles. “Hail and well met?”

The fighter must've rolled a twenty on charisma because the spears lower and the guards look to one another before leading them through a comically short doorway to meet their leader.

\--

To his and Magnus’ relief, the cavern ceiling dramatically rises after the entrance. They step out to an overhang overlooking an underground city lit by torches and dimly glowing crystals.

As they walk through the city, Merle tries his best at making small talk and gathering information while occasionally sprinkling in some evangelism. Lingering towards the back, Taako takes the opportunity to think about the figure he’d seen earlier. The way it seemed to phase through the ground nowhere near the entrance hole would seem to suggest that it was either an apparition or simply made of different stuff.

Either way, it sounds like trouble.

He wishes Lup had seen it so they could puzzle it out together right now. But as it is, Taako is on his own to ponder the possibility of an entity following them through multiple cycles.

Shrugging it off, he reminds himself to get her opinion on it when they return to the ship.

Next to him, Lup cackles as Magnus walks into a poorly lit building.

\--

Things quickly go sour after they reach the leader's hall. A stout dwarf with a long, greying beard greets them in Dwarvish from his dais. Merle quickly gets swept up in talks and while Magnus stands to the side, clueless, Taako and Lup can hear the exchange perfectly.

And they are horrified.

In the underground civilization of this planet, humans and elves and whatever other races that once dwelled on the surface have long since died out, refusing to leave their home above-ground even as violent storms ravaged everything. Seeing both elves and a human in person was a novelty none of them ever thought they would experience again—and it was a novelty so many residents would be willing to pay for.

The leader wanted the three of them to be traded in for food and shelter. “I will treat your wards with the utmost care. You even have two elves! Are they magically cloned or do they all look like that?”

Taako arches a brow because _rude_. The two of them couldn’t be more different today. He's clearly wearing his jacket over his hood while Lup's wearing her hood over her jacket.

“No, no, not cloned,” Merle mutters. “Magic but not cloned.”

The leader leans forward to take a closer look before clapping his hands excitedly. “Fascinating! Give them to us. They will be well kept and live surrounded by all the luxury this world can provide.”

For once, Merle wisely doesn't mention the two additional humans still on the Starblaster and shakes his head with a nervous laugh. “Sorry, dude, that's going to be a no deal. These guys aren't really for sale, you know? Not exactly the best quality either. Wouldn't want to give you anything but the best.”

The smile drops from the dwarf's face. “The offer was only a formality, friend. I suggest you take it. The alternative is you not leaving at all.”

Taako's ears twitch and he cautiously reaches into one of his pockets to turn his Stone of Far Speech on.

The rest of the crew need to know what's up if they don't make it back out to tell them.

Just then, he feels a sharp pain in his back followed a wet, fleshy sound.

Looking down, he sees a blade protruding from his chest and staggers forward and falls to the ground with a choke gasp.

Lup screams his name and a wave of heat passes above him.

 _Ha_ , these idiots were going to get it now.

And boy oh boy, if Merle doesn't come heal him soon, he's also going to beef it.

Sometimes he wishes Davenport thought to bring an actual cleric on board.

With a trembling hand, he tries his best to draw his wand to help his friends but gets distracted by a shoe. Blinking sluggishly, he narrows his eyes, trying to get his failing vision to clear up what can only be an oddly specific pre-death hallucination.  

The shoe steps closer.

It’s an immaculately polished black shoe.

In his last moment of consciousness, Taako tries to focus—tries to get his head to tilt up to catch a glimpse of the owner of this fancy shoe, or at the very least get a little blood on them.

He doesn't know of he succeeds.

\--

When he wakes again, he's on the ship again in what he can only assume to be a new cycle. Lup is by his side, the two of them arm in arm, just as they had been when they first left their system.

“So I kicked it,” Taako says, still not quite believing the statement. “Did you?”

Lup wraps her arms around him tightly. “Yeah, I goofed pretty bad.”

It's their first death then.

He tries not to linger on that thought.

“Did anyone make it out of that stupid hole?” he asks, addressing the rest of the crew.

Magnus shakes his head. “No, I think they got us pretty good down there. Merle?”

“How should I know? I'm pretty sure I was first one down,” the dwarf says.

Taako raises his hand. “I'm pretty sure the honour goes to your boy here. Thank you. So we all died in a hole. Good to know.”

“It's a good thing you turned on your Stone of Far Speech or we would've never known. Things could've ended very badly in that cycle,” Lucretia says, even as she visibly shudders from the memory. “We ended up circling the plane and dodging storms for the rest of the year. We never even saw the Light of Creation fall.”

He shrugs and yawns, doing his best to look unaffected by the last cycle. “Serves them right for skewering me.” A shiver runs down his spine when he thinks back to the blade sticking out of his chest. “I think I'll sit out for the exploration part for this cycle. Taako's good out here.”

“I don't blame you,” Barry says sympathetically. “It sounded like a rough time down there.”

Taako knows he's aiming for sincere, but sometimes he still gets that mixed up with pity in his head. He purses his lips but Lup gives his arm another squeeze and subtly shakes her head, gesturing for him to hold his tongue.

“You two stay here and rest as long as you need to,” Davenport tells them. “The first death is always the hardest.”

The implication that more deaths are bound to follow hangs heavily in the air.

Waving the words off, Taako turns and retreats towards the kitchen. “Yeah, well, that's not happening again this cycle. That’s going to be a hard pass for Taako. You can come get me when we reach the Material Plane. This wizard here needs him some nosh.”

\--

Their next cycle turns out populated too. With small settlements and larger towns dotting the surface, Davenport sets them down a safe distance away from a smaller town and leaves with a small diplomatic party.

Before long, they return unharmed and very much welcomed by the townspeople, a diverse blend of races this time. The rest of the crew are invited to a modest feast and go without hesitation despite more than half of them being killed last time.

Taako volunteers to stay behind.

Lup lingers back. “Hey, you want some company?”

He smiles and waves her off. “I’m good. You go on ahead with the others. Taako's got a project to work on.”

“More papier-mâché?”

“Nah, that's not going to fly anymore,” he says. “Go have fun, Lulu. Not holding my breath, but on the off chance they have unworldly cuisine, bring me back a sample.”

She gives him a kiss on the cheek. “Sure. Don't get into too much trouble without me, Koko.”

Watching the crew leave from the deck of the ship, he pretends to be fatally wounded by the kiss his sister blows at him before setting about bringing his material over to the deck where his latest makeshift lab is set up.

It's only as he's tinkering with bits of metal that he remembers the figure and pristine shoes standing next to him in the last world. He wishes he’d fallen at a better angle to at least catch a glimpse of the person. Suddenly, there’s a familiar prickling sensation at the back of his neck and he freezes. Setting everything down and sparing a quick glance over the railing, Taako narrows his eyes against the setting sun and does a quick perimeter check.

All clear.

When he returns to his setup, the air seems to shift around him and he hears a rip coming from what sounds like the very fabric of existence.

Whirling around, Taako whips out his wand out and points it toward the sound of the rip just in time to see a scythe at his neck.


	2. Chapter 2

The lab he had haphazardly set up goes clattering to the floor and Taako really hopes nothing broke because getting a Mend out of Merle will be a task and a half. Glancing down at the blade, he levels an unimpressed glare at the—oh _hello_ , very handsome man at the other end of the weapon.

Still, he can't afford to be distracted, no matter how easy on the eyes this stranger is in his fancy black suit and perfectly polished shoes. The scythe in his hands looks like it could do a lot of damage never mind whatever magic might come flying out of it.

They can't fight here.

Ducking down as the blade rears back and swings above his head, he raises his wand and tries to cast Charm Person. The man shrugs it off with a frown and Taako immediately begins readying a round of Banishment.

The Astral Plane seems like the most aesthetically appropriate choice for this person, he thinks with a wry smile. It’s a shame to banish such a handsome stranger, but he can't risk anything happening to the Starblaster.

Taako isn't ready to settle down and be permanently consumed by the Hunger just yet.

Another swing and this time, Taako can feel magic building up in the scythe. He raises his wand just as the man brings his scythe back for another attack. The two lock eyes.

Another stalemate.

Inhaling, he asks, “Are you with the Hunger?” just as the man asks, “Are you the one doing all this?”

They continue staring each other down, more hesitant this time. “Okay, handsome, how about we put the weapons down and talk?” Taako offers slowly, shoulders relaxing but wand still at the ready.

Red eyes blink before narrowing, scythe raised and steady in his hands. “You died in the last world.”

“Yeah, and you were right there and not helping—thank you for that, by the way. I also noticed you lurking around in other worlds. Got anything you'd like to share?” he drawls.

“You died in the last world,” the man says again, only this time, his skin and flesh seem to dissolve, leaving nothing but his bones and glowing red eyes in place of the once handsome visage. “How are you here? Are you the one who's been bringing darkness to these worlds?”

Taako's eyebrows raise in surprise. “If you were hoping to coax answers out of me you should've stayed handsome, my fella.” Taking a slow step back, he says, “Listen, I don't think we're on opposing sides here. Let's just talk. If we need to fight later, I'd be more than happy to tentacle your dick, okay?”

Probably not the best choice on the intimidation front but he’s got enough spell slots to back up his threat.

The man shifts but doesn't answer. On the other hand, he's also not attacking, which Taako takes as a promising sign.

“Alright, as a gesture of goodwill, I'll start,” he tries. “I'm Taako. You know, from TV? I'm not creating the darkness, just running from it. I died last cycle and nothing crazy happened, remember? Well, I guess I don't really know that since I died, but still. To put it loosely, we're the ones who've been trying to save these worlds.”

Finally, the skeletal figure eases up the scythe and straightens, his features returning to him though his eyes continue retain the red glow. “I’m Kravitz,” he says with a frown, “a bounty hunter for the Raven Queen.”

The Raven Queen, a goddess from their original world who presides over deaths and all things goth, his mind supplies. He gives a slow nod and lowers his wand. “That title sounded kind of ominous but still a good start here. Let's talk, Kravitz. Why—no, wait, _how_ are you here?”

“I could ask the same thing of you,” Kravitz returns easily.

Taako huffs. “Fair. Okay, how about we flip a coin and loser talks first?”

The man gives an amused half-smile. “Sure. I love a good gamble—risks and wits and wagers and all that.”

“Excellent.” He pulls out a silver and tosses it over. “Here, make sure it’s not an illusion or enchanted.”

Kravitz arches a brow, inspects the coin and tosses it back. “Looks good to me.”

“I call tails.” He flips the coin and attempts to cast a Minor Illusion on it but screws up his sleight of hand and fumbles and drops the coin instead.

They watch as it lands on heads.

“ _Fuck_.”

Crossing his arms, Kravitz smiles at him expectantly. “So. Taako, was it? Let’s talk.”

Although it’s slow going, they start piecing together bit by bit how he came to the 24th cycle with the rest of the crew. While he talks, Kravitz listens without once ever interrupting; all aggression from earlier gone without a trace. When he finishes his side of the story, Taako stretches and walks back towards the doorway, earning him a confused look. “I don't know if you need to eat, Skeletor, but ya boy's getting hungry. We can continue this inside.”

“Oh, of course. My apologies,” Kravitz says, ducking his head almost ruefully. “You really _are_ alive again.”

“The world wasn't ready to part with Taako yet. Can you blame it?” That draws a chuckle from the man and he pauses at the door and turns back. “Are you coming or do you have to be invited in or some shit like that?”

Kravitz quickly steps forward and follows him. “I can enter. I wouldn't be very good at my job if I needed an invitation every time.”

Nodding slowly, he walks into the kitchen and begins rummaging through their pantry. “I'm sure that's all very true and a testament to your work ethics, but I still don't know what you do.”

“I hunt down wayward souls that escape the Astral Plane and dole out punishment for anybody who breaks the natural laws of life and death, to put it basically,” the man says.

“So…you're Death?”

Oh boy howdy, banishing this guy to the Astral Plane would’ve been the dumbest mistake.

Straightening his suit, Kravitz gives a curt nod. “Some call me that, sure. I've also been called the Grim Reaper, which I quite like. But as I introduced myself earlier, you can just call me Kravitz.”

“Yeah, okay.” Taako spares him a glance before returning to the task at hand and measuring out a fist full of pasta. “Hey, Bone Daddy, you eat?”

“E-excuse me?” comes the stuttered reply.

He snickers to himself and repeats, “Do you eat?”

Quickly regaining his composure, the reaper nods. “I don't have to but I can.”

“Sweet, I'll hook you up then. It's to _die_ for.”

As if he's heard that joke a thousand times, Kravitz sighs. “That’s not—that’s still not a good goof.”

Taako grins. “Really? Does it _rattle your bones_?”

At this, Kravitz laughs, running a hand through his hair incredulously. “Boy, you aren't intimidated by me at all, are you?”

“Nah, Lup's scarier when she's mad. Besides, I think we’ve already established that death isn’t exactly a permanent state for me. Take a seat, bubelah,” he says, gesturing at one of the barstools, “and tell me what's up and how exactly I've been seeing you across different cycles. Are you just a universal constant or what?”

The reaper shakes his head. “No, not me personally. I am also from a different system.”

As he brings the water to a boil, Taako listens.

\--

He learns that during cycle zero, Kravitz had been summoned to the Celestial Plane for a rare in-person meeting with the Raven Queen when it happened. The Hunger struck and the gods were in chaos. All except the Raven Queen.

And Istus.

The Raven Queen shielded her charge while the Goddess of Fate did _something_. Kravitz felt her powers lash out beyond the plane but nothing more before they were overtaken by the Hunger.

Then they were alright.

Restored.

Whatever the inky blackness was, it had passed. Or, that's what he thought until he peered into the Astral Plane to find it overrun with animals. Then at the end of the year, they found themselves swallowed whole by the Hunger once more only to return again in a different system.

In this system, they were trapped in the Celestial Plane. In a barren land with no worshippers, the plane the gods resided in was cut off. Although he was in a more flexible position (because whether or not people believed in the Raven Queen, death was still an inevitability of life), with no dead residing in the Astral Plane, the connection there had been lost as well.

The only difference was a new name in his ledger of bounties.

_Magnus Burnsides_

On and on again, teleporting through the systems, sometimes cut off, sometimes not.

The eighth cycle had been a special case. They went into the system alone and forgotten but then something happened. A new church dedicated to Pan happened, rekindling the link between the planes.

Kravitz had been sent out to scout out the plane and report his findings.

And he found the crew of the Starblaster.

When that cycle ended, his ledger had a new mark in it.

_Magnus Burnsides II_

He made it a point to seek out the Starblaster after that, whenever he could find a way onto the Material Plane.

During the last cycle, he happened to be in the right place at the right time. The reaper watched on impassively as the landing crew were cut down one after another. He personally shepherded their souls to the Astral Plane only to find their names on his growing list of bounties.

_Magnus Burnsides III_

_Merle Highchurch_

_Lup Taaco_

_Taako Taaco_

\--

“If my suspicions are correct, then Lady Istus may have tethered the Celestial Plane to your ship,” Kravitz mutters to himself.

Taako doesn't respond, serving up his pasta onto separate plates. “Dinner's served, my man.”

The reaper looks up, startled from his thoughts. “Oh, thank you.”

Leaning against the countertop and twirling a fork in his spaghetti, he hums contemplatively. “So what you're saying is that the gods hitched a ride with us?”

“In a sense—” He's cut off when he looks down in surprise as if to double check what he just ate. “Taako, this is amazing!”

He grins lazily. “Thanks, I get that a lot. Eat up! When you dine on the Starblaster, you dine on nothing but the best.”

Kravitz arches a brow in amusement, pausing with the fork raised half way to his mouth. “You named your ship the 'Starblaster’?”

“That's how we do. Pretty rad, right? If it'd been named something lame like the 'Laser Spinnaker’ I would've never set foot on it and then where would we be?”

That gets him another chuckle and _fuck_ , this guy is a treat for the eyes. Kravitz takes another bite, looking far more at ease than he had on the deck.

They're about to continue their discussion when the door is kicked in. The two of them draw their weapons as Lup storms in, her hands ablaze. Her gaze shifts from the stranger to him and hesitates. “What’s going on, Taako!?”

Taako immediately relaxes and puts his wand down and waves to get Kravitz's attention. “Hey, dude, it's chill. That's my sister.” Turning to Lup, he asks, “Is everything okay?”

Her hands sputter out in surprise. “Is every—is everything _okay_!? Do you know how scared I was when I came back to find your stuff all over the deck!?”

It's only then that he realizes that he never bothered tidying up after their little showdown on the deck. “Right. Sorry about that. We had a guest. Remember that figure I kept seeing? This is Kravitz.”

A little sheepishly, Kravitz nods and puts his weapon away.

She eyes him with distrust. “Taako, he was holding a scythe just now. How is he following us through cycles? What if he's with the Hunger?”

“Nah, he's just Death.”

At this, she stares at him for a long while before frowning. “Listen. Taako. I love you and I would die for you but what. The. _Fuck_.”

Taako can't help but smile a little. “I assume you came by early because nothing in that town was edible?”

“Or I wanted to check up on you,” Lup retorts.

A growl from her stomach betrays her.

“That's what I thought,” he says, filling another dish with spaghetti. “You might as well sit down and eat, Lup. It's going to take a while to explain.”

\--

After rehashing the story and finishing off the pasta, Lup is resting her head on her hand with a frown on her lips. “So what happens to the existing gods when you guys show up in the Celestial Plane?”

“They move over and everyone just kind of moves over and…coexists,” Kravitz explains. “The gods themselves aren't particularly combative. Their followers are a different story.”

“Alright, next question: if you're chilling with the gods, why don't you get them to help fight against the Hunger?” she asks.

Kravitz shakes his head. “Even the most violent gods have rules they must exist by. Interfering with the Material Plane so dramatically is forbidden. Besides, the Celestial Plane is normally cut off by the Hunger well before the attack on this plane.”

Lup sighs in frustration. “Then why are you here? If you or the gods can't help, then what's the point?”

“Hey now,” Taako says, cutting in, “let's not be hasty, Lup. I'm pretty sure Merle would object to his god being called useless. Isn't Dan like his source of magic or something? I mean, you know, when he seduces plants or, on the rare occasion, tries to heal someone?”

He gets a snicker from his sister and feels his shoulders loosen a little. “Besides, there are plenty of ways for everybody to help—assuming they want to help,” he says, glancing over at Kravitz pointedly.

Taking the hint, the reaper immediately replies, “Yes, of course I want to help if it means putting a stop to this chaos!”

“Excellent. Just make sure you keep your eyes open,” Taako says. “We always need help finding and actually getting the Light of Creation. The gods probably won't help with that but _you_ can.”

Lup's eyes widen. “Taako, that's genius!”

Playing with the end of his braided hair, he smiles. “Natch.”

They quickly make plans to meet up again the next day and attune their Stones of Far Speech before Kravitz nods. “I need to go report to the Raven Queen about my findings. I will see you and your crew tomorrow.” He summons his scythe and effortlessly tears a hole in time and space, and before going through, he looks back and says, “Thank you for the meal, Taako. It was the most delicious thing I've had in…well, in a very long time.”

Taako waggles his fingers. “Anytime, my man.”

And then Kravitz is gone.

Left alone with his sister, he can feel her eyes boring holes into his skull, delighted rather than frustrated. Instead of acknowledging her, he yawns. “Well, we should figure out a way to tell the rest of the guys. Where are they anyway?”

“Still in town,” she replies. “There was booze.”

“And you didn't think to bring me back any?” he gasps, affronted.

“I did! I left it up on the deck because I thought you'd been killed again!” Lup argues.

Taako immediately holds his hands up in surrender. “Fair. Let's go get it then, shall we?”

When they return to the deck, he starts cleaning up his mess while Lup retrieves the bottle from the floor and says, “So Death was surprisingly good looking, huh?”

He waves off her suggestive look. “Yeah, he _must_ be objectively good looking if even you, someone crushing on a nerd in denim, think so.”

Lup's face reddens, spreading to the tips of her ears. “Hey!”

\--

The next day, Kravitz returns to meet the rest of the crew, several of whom woke up with unfortunate hangovers. As they are talking on the deck, with Kravitz patiently explaining everything again and Lucretia scribbling away furiously with both hands, Barry points up to the sky. “Hey, I think that's the Light of Creation!”

Everyone stops and looks up to see the streak of light fall into the distance. Taako and Lup immediately pull out their crudely drawn map of this planet and start working out their triangulations.

Occasionally glancing back up at the sky, Taako spares a peek over at Kravitz and catches his eye.

Still ridiculously good looking.

As far as he's concerned, this is probably a sign from fate or destiny or whatever—now that he knows there's an actual goddess presiding over that kind of thing.

With a clear view of the falling light and Barry joining in, they quickly approximate the landing site, drawing a large circle on their map.

The next thing Taako knows, he's being dropped off with Lup, Barry, and Kravitz at the approximate place the light landed in. While it's not a forest or an endless desert or the middle of an ocean, the area is covered in hills and rocky terrain.

Barry has the map in his hand, trying to read and navigate the terrain at the same time. More than once, Lup has to pull him back by the jacket to stop him from falling.

After the fourth time, she says, “Maybe we should stop to read the map. We're going to lose Barold before we find the light at this rate.”

Sighing, Taako pulls out his wand. “Guess it's up to me to do the heavy lifting. Who feels like taking point up there?”

He's about to cast Levitate when a hand lightly touches his shoulder. Taako turns around to see Kravitz standing there, a faint smile on his lips. “Allow me.”

Without another word, Kravitz floats into the air, full skeletal facade back in place. Looking up, Taako and Lup blink. “That's handy.”

“Yeah, saved me a spell slot.”

“Try looking in that direction,” Barry calls out, pointing to the left.

Kravitz floats to the left with far more grace and control than a levitated person would've been able to muster and calls out, “I think I see something!”

“Go on ahead, we'll follow,” Lup shouts back.

On the ground, the three of them jog after the flying reaper, doing their best to keep up climbing over craggy rocks and leaping over steep drops.

Taako is holding his own and has challenged Lup to a race, the two of them scrambling over surfaces, occasionally egging the other on. Behind them, Barry is keeping up with more difficulty, what with the map and his restrictive pants limiting his mobility.

They hear a yell and skid to a halt in their race. Barry is nowhere in sight and Lup is about to leap back over when Kravitz reappears over the ledge of a small cliff with Barry in tow. So caught up in the race, Taako doesn't know when the reaper disappeared from the sky.

Setting the human down, Kravitz waves off the thank you and continues over toward the light. Lup glances over at Barry apologetically. “Sorry, we'll slow down.”

“No, it was my own fault for not looking at where I was going. It's a good thing Kravitz was there. I mean, I'd be revived in the next cycle, but it'd be nice to study the Light of Creation more, you know?” Barry says with a chuckle.

“You're such a nerd, Barold,” Taako says lightly. “Looks like your dream's coming true. I see it up ahead.”

The four of them congregate around the light sitting in a little crater in the ground. Kravitz changes back and blinks in wonder. “It's beautiful.”

He looks down at the glowing shape and furrows his brow. “Is it?” Swooping down to pluck the light up, he holds it up and shrugs. “I guess it's okay. It'd be more beautiful if it didn't lead to the demise of whatever world it lands in.” He holds it out. “Want to see?”

Kravitz reached out to touch the light. But when he does, they watch as the flesh of his fingers disappear, leaving nothing but bony digits in their place. Pulling his hand back, Kravitz examines his fingers, now back to their original state and says, “I suppose it makes sense that I can't interact with something called ‘the Light of Creation’.”

Lup blinks. “I guess that means we can't just send you out to get it for us then. Bummer.” Then she looks at the reaper and smiles. “You were pretty helpful though, right, Taako?”

“You did stop Barold from dying. That's _something_ ,” he says with a shrug. “Consider yourself hired.”

The man tilts his head. “Thank you? I actually have a bounty to take care of right now though.”

Taako scoffs. “You're still doing work even though this isn't your home? You'll just get dragged away in a year's time, you know that, right?”

A sheepish smile. “Even so, death stops for no one.”

He blows Death a raspberry. “God, you're an even bigger nerd than Barold. Fine, go do your job.”

“Come by to visit whenever and call us if you find anything interesting, Ghost Rider,” Lup chimes in. After Kravitz nods a final time and leaves, she wheels around and smiles. “Let’s head back, boys. We only have a couple of months left to figure this shit out before we're blasted away again.”

\--

Kravitz quickly becomes a regular visitor of the Starblaster. Occasionally, he'll call in using his stone to report on interesting phenomenon he came across while hunting down a bounty, which usually leads to Lucretia rushing to the site to add to her journals.

On this day, Taako is slumped over a table with the light in front of him. He has pages and pages of notes piled in front of him, mostly scratched out or illegible after trying to figure out the construct of the stupid thing and how the Hunger keeps finding it.

There's a jaunty whistle from the doorway and he sits up, surprisingly refreshed from the tune. Blinking, Taako looks over to find Kravitz standing there. “…hang on a sec, my dude, are you a _bard_?”

“No, I'm a bounty hunter for the Raven Queen,” the man replies before chuckling at himself and taking a seat across the table. “But I used to know a bit about music a long time ago. I wanted to be a conductor.”

“Is that why you're in the fancy suit?” he asks. “You look the part.”

Glancing down, Kravitz shrugs. “This? It's just how I dress. It seems appropriate for the job, doesn't it?”

“You mean for reaping? Yeah, for sure, dude. Very dignified and serious.” He grins. “Have you ever considered doing an accent? Like,” clearing his throat, he puts on his best Cockney accent, “ _somethin’ ‘ike ‘is._ ”

Kravitz stares at him, bemused, for a long moment before asking in a perfect, thick Cockney accent, “Y’mean more like this?”

His eyes widen and he sits up. “Holy shit! That's amazing! Imagine sending souls off like that! I mean, it's gotta get old doing the same thing all the time, right? Why not jazz it up? You could have a work voice! It’d be like a train name only a billion times better!”

The reaper cocks his head and begins speaking with a posh London accent. “What about something like this?”

Taako throws his head back and laughs, delighted. “Hell yeah! You're a natural!” Wiping the tears from his eyes, he shakes his head. “Oh man, thanks. I needed that.”

Kravitz smiles, reverting back to his normal voice. “Anytime.”

Getting out of his seat, he hooks his arm around the reaper's and pulls him toward the door. “Actually, I'm going to take you up on that right now. Let's go find Magnus! Pretend to be super offended when he asks about your accent, okay? This is _gold_!” Turning around, he calls out, “Barold, dear, watch the light for a sec, we're going pranking!”

“Wha!?” Barry sits up with a start and looks around, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. “Oh, sure. Have fun, you guys.”

Walking into the lab with a fresh pot of coffee, Lup nearly drops it when she sees him out of his seat. “Holy shit, Bone Daddy, you got Taako to take a break!?” Then, “Wait! I'm coming too!”

\--

The crew all seem to take having Death lingering on the ship in stride. Sometimes Davenport will find him reading a book on the deck, other times Merle will find him silently slipping out of the botany room during watering time. Mostly, Kravitz hangs around the lab, watching the twins and Barry poke and prod at the light, helping bounce ideas despite not being able to interact with it. Taako finds it handy to have a reaper bard around when he and his sister get caught up with their tests and experiments. If not to provide refreshing whistled tunes, then just coffee will do too.

Without looking, Taako rubs his eyes tiredly and casts mage hand to fetch himself a cup of coffee from the makeshift drinks station nearby. Around the table, Lup and Barry quickly follow suit.

Suddenly, the door opens and Magnus rushes in. “Hey, guys? I think something's wrong with Kravitz.”

The three of them immediately shoot up and run out onto the deck. They find Kravitz taking a knee, face scrunched up in pain while Merle circles him, trying to find a cause.

“Kravitz?” Taako approaches cautiously. “Hey, what's wrong? What happened?”

Magnus shakes his head. “Nothing! We were just talking about sparring and then suddenly he collapsed! Grim Reapers can’t get heart attacks, can they?”

Clutching his chest, the reaper looks up. “The Hunger is here. My connection with the Raven Queen and the Astral Plane has been cut off. It's reached this system.”

Merle frowns and tries to cast one of his spells only for it to come out in a sputter. “Pan's not answering me either.”

The crew look at each other in alarm and then up at the sky and notice that it's not as blue as it was a day ago. Davenport runs to the helm, readying the ship to take them to the next cycle.

The entire world seems to still and silence as the skies darken.

A scythe appears in Kravitz's hand and he uses it to push himself up, back onto his feet. Magnus gapes. “How’d you do that? I thought you didn't have your powers anymore?”

“I still have some—a reservoir, if you will,” Kravitz explains wearily. “And this scythe is soul-bound. It's proof of my fealty to the Raven Queen.”

“Cool! Can you teach me how to do that?” the fighter asks, as if familiar tendrils of opaque darkness aren't starting to form above them.

Kravitz arches a brow. “Maybe next time. It's a pretty tedious process and I don't know if it'd stick given your circumstances.”

Magnus deflates and Merle gives him a pat on the back. “You can figure it out next cycle, Maggie.”

The bond engine whirls louder now, glowing brighter. Barry runs back to the lab to check on the Light of Creation while Lup forces Lucretia to hunker down, her hands still furiously writing and drawing. “You guys, get ready for blast off!”

Stepping back from Kravitz, Taako walks over to the side of the deck and looks down. The tendrils have landed and he can see the land drained of its vibrancy.

“It looks pretty bad.”

He looks over at the reaper, fingers carding through his hair idly. “You've never been here for the end of a cycle?”

“Only once, but not from this vantage point,” Kravitz says.

Taako huffs. “I bet you were still trying to do work.”

“You know, it's kind of hard to deal death to people when you're cut off from the Astral Plane,” the reaper says with surprising levity.

A shudder runs through the hull of the ship. He instinctively tightens his grip on the rails. “Well, it's been real. Maybe I'll catch you in the next cycle, handsome.”

Above them, a tendril begins reaching down for the ship.

Kravitz chuckles. “It's been a pleasure, Taako.”

The Starblaster surges forward and then they're up in the sky and passing through that unseen vortex.

And then Kravitz is gone and Taako finds himself inside, next to his sister again.


	3. Chapter 3

After another two years and one rather grizzly death, they finally meet again with Kravitz standing on the deck with his arms crossed, still in his fancy suit and perfectly polished shoes. Still stunningly good looking.

“What happened?”

Taako shrugs, instinctively reaching up to play with his hair. “Fish?”

Arching a brow, the reaper asks, “You were all killed by fish?”

“Not all of us. Me for sure. Cap'n'port too, probably—being bite size and all that,” he recalls, counting on his fingers. “I think the whirlpool got Merle, even though he's the one who made it and the reason we fell in in the first place. It also got Barold, poor guy just learned to swim like a decade ago, and I'm not sure about Lucretia. It was a rough world so you can imagine why we’re not rushing to jump into the water here. It's almost like we learned a lesson or something.”

Below, they continue flying over the vast expanse of water without any hint of land in sight. Finally letting out a soft laugh, Kravitz shakes his head. “How you all survived as long as you have is a miracle. It's a good thing you haven't gone in the water yet. I just collected a bounty and the mers looked…hungry.”

He makes a face. “That’s going to be a big _no thank you_ for me. Taako is done being fed to fishes. Lup still hasn't let it go.”

She snuck into his bed every day for the first week after he returned and just the thought of it is enough to bring his guilt back.

Behind them, Lup pokes her head out from the lab and shouts, “I can hear you, Fish Bait—oh, and welcome back, Ghost Rider.”

Kravitz waves back. “Hello, Lup. I'm glad you survived the last world.”

She spares him a grin. “Wasn't that hard.”

Taako blows his sister a kiss and watches her pretend to catch it only to engulf her hand in flame after. Knowing that there’s nothing he can do to dispel her anger for now, he makes a mental note to try addressing this again later and asks, “How was your time with the gods?”

“Uneventful. Lady Istus weaved a very beautiful tapestry but it came undone when the cycle ended,” Kravitz says, sounding genuinely disappointed.

“The Celestial Plane sounds like a rave,” Taako says drily. “Hey, question. And feel free to not answer it.”

Cocking his head to the side curiously, Kravitz nods. “What is it?”

Taako plays around with the wording in his head before asking, “How'd you end up in service to the Raven Queen? Did you hand in a resume and cover letter?”

“Oh, yes. The interview process was extremely rigorous. I had to go through five rounds and ritually sacrificed one of my references before I was even considered,” the man says drily. “No, I used to practice in a temple to the Raven Queen. It was the only place in town with a piano, you see. And then one day, I guess people broke in and I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't remember it very well, but after I died, she took me under her wing and I chose to follow her.”

“Literally? Like, did she take you under her literal wing?” he asks. “This is a very important question, like, _super_ vital info.”

Kravitz chuckles. “Only sometimes. The mystery continues.”

Still fiddling with the end of his braid, he hums. “Fine, be a tease. Do you ever wish it went differently?”

A shrug. “I'm over it. I've had a lot of time to come to terms with everything. You know, life finds a way and all that. Or, in this case, death. More specifically, the goddess of death.”

Taako nods. “In your case specifically, yes. Speaking of death, how do you feel about fishing?”

The reaper stares at him for a long moment. “Didn't you _just_ come back from being eaten alive by a fish?”

He grins. “Yeah, and now it's my turn to do the eating!”

They fail to fish the light out from the water in this world, but after several close calls with carnivorous mers, Taako finds it hard to care too much.

\--

Kravitz is the one who finds the light the next cycle, coming across it during one of his jobs, deep in a cave burrowed into the side of a mountain and worshipped by a pack of large dogs. He tried to take a closer look, but even while invisible, the animals seemed to sense his presence.

With only days left before the end and lured by the promise of dogs, Magnus volunteers to go retrieve it. Barry decides to go with him so the rest of the crew sit back and wait over a game of cards.

“Will they be okay?” Kravitz asks, looking up from his hand.

Taako shrugs. “Probably. Barold will be at least. I don’t think any of us will be able to drag Magnus away. He fucking _loves_ dogs.”

Lup nods. “If he doesn’t get mauled, he’ll stay with them for the rest of the cycle for sure. I’ll raise you all two gold.”

“It’s probably the happiest death he’ll ever get one way or another,” Merle says, throwing his cards in.

“That’s all we can really ever hope for,” Davenport sighs.

Kravitz furrows his brows. “Wow, guys, that’s pretty dark.”

Lucretia suddenly starts laughing. “Hot diggity shit, we’ve become so dour even the _Grim Reaper_ is telling us to lighten up.” Laughter sweeps across the table, easing the tension. Then she says, “I’ll raise you another three.”

Lup curses and throws her cards in.

When Barry returns triumphant and covered in fur and slobber, he holds out the light and says, “Magnus, uh, he decided to stay. Last I saw, he was building them an obstacle course. Boy, he wasn’t joking when he said he had animal proficiency.”

\--

Lup beefs it during cycle 29 and Taako suddenly understands how horribly alone he is without his sister. As the Starblaster hovers over the barren land, the surviving crew members take turns visiting him in _their_ room with food and words of comfort but as much as he appreciates the gesture, he just wants _Lup_.

“You know, Lup was the same way when you got eaten by that fish a few cycles back,” Magnus tells him quietly at his bedside. “You'll get her back soon enough, bud.”

While he understands this to be true, his mind, ever whirring and spinning at an incomprehensible pace, wonders what would happen if the cycles were to end here—if he was expected to live a life without his sister by his side.

When Lup and Lucretia return at the start of the next cycle, Taako latches onto her tight and refuses to let go. And instead of laughing and teasing him for his irrational fear, she holds him close and apologizes for leaving him alone.

That night, they sleep together, curled up together in the same bed just as they used to when they were children.

They refuse to be apart in Tesseralia, hand in hand, they explore the seedier parts of the kingdom, trying the local cuisine and swindling the shoes off the inhabitants. Even when Kravitz and Barry join them on their outings, they adamantly stay within sight of each other.

Kravitz, to his credit, never brings up Lup's second death. Instead, he joins a few of their exploits when he finds the time, watching on in amusement as the twins swindle the shoes off a couple of locals and as Taako pretends to tearfully part with a mortar and pestle Merle had gifted him over a decade ago.

“Doesn't this place remind you of that sketchy tavern we used to work at after the caravans?” Lup says lightly when they’re led to the restaurant beneath another restaurant.

“You mean that one run by that smelly old orc with the peg leg?” Taako looks around and shrugs. “Nah, there aren't enough axes stuck in the walls.”

They find a seat and she shakes her head. “No, I was thinking more of the one owned by that tiefling? Remember how there were weekly fire nights where she would walk table to table and light it on fire?”

He laughs. “And if you could get your food out of the flames, you could eat it, yeah, I liked that place. But what about that one with the 'if you can steal it and get away then it's on the house’ policy?”

Lup grins. “Yeah, I got to set someone's pants on fire!”

Barry furrows his brows. “Those places sound pretty rough.”

“It's true, I remember collecting bounty in some of those places more than once,” Kravitz adds. “And if I can remember a specific place like that, it was probably _real_ bad.”

Cocking his head, Taako shrugs. “It wasn't anything we couldn't handle, right, Lup?”

“Yeah. That one kitchen where we had to wrestle our knives back from customers was kind of iffy,” Lup points out, “but we had magic. We held our own.”

Watching his sister get up to order more food with Barry in tow, he feels eyes on him and turns back to Kravitz. “Yes?”

The reaper looks up, contemplative. “You and Lup have taken on some dangerous jobs.”

He picks at the end of his ponytail and shrugs again. “No one else would have us. We got sick of being passed around by the family so we left and started doing odd jobs and cooking for caravans. After a while, we found the big city and gave that a try until we joined the IPRE.”

“It sounds like it wasn’t an easy journey for you two,” Kravitz says softly, ruefully. “Thank you for telling me and I'm sorry if I brought back bad memories.”

Taako shakes his head. “Nah, it wasn't that bad. No matter what I lacked or what the world told me I didn’t have, I always had Lup.” Glancing over to where his sister is piling plate after plate onto Barry's arms, he smiles. “We joined the IPRE not really knowing what to expect and now I have five other nerds who won't leave me alone.”

Kravitz chuckles. “They're good people.”

He nods. “Yeah, even the cleric who doesn't heal. It's nice. I mean, barring the world ending every year, it's been…good.” Then he turns to the reaper and grins. “And sometimes, when things work out, I even have Death by my side.”

\--

When they return from their culinary adventure at the end of the year, Merle tells them about the new spell he learned from the monastery. “They're saying they won't hand over the light unless I make peace with someone.”

Magnus, in his ridiculous Winners jersey, looks over to him and Lup and asks, “Is this kind of magic really possible? It sounds dangerous.”

“I guess so? It's an intricate spell though,” Taako replies, trying to work out the mechanics in his head.

Merle waves them off. “Never mind that mumbo jumbo. If I die, I'll just come back the next cycle! So who do you think I should call? It can be anyone in the world! Any grudges? Death, maybe?”

Kravitz arches a brow and Lucretia points out, not unkindly, “He's literally standing right here.”

A shrug. “Alright, not Death. What about that Greg person?”

Lup laughs and shakes her head. “Until the day I die, which will be never at this rate, I will hold this grudge over Greg _fucking_ Grimaldis. Or until he pays me back my fifteen.” A shrug. “Either way, don't waste such a sick spell on that loser! Merle, you can talk to _anybody_ in the world! What about the Hunger?”

Taako quickly glances over at his sister. “Is that a good idea? I mean, any information we get would be amazing but we don't know how it works, Lup. How do we even know someone will be there to answer?”

Merle seems to hesitate at the suggestion as well. “I get this feeling that meeting the Hunger will _hurt_. Dying still hurts, you know? Like, at least I know Kravitz would make it quick and painless.”

“Thank you? You know, if that’s what you want, you don’t have to pull me into a different dimension for it, Merle,” Kravitz says with a baffled smile.

Davenport steps forward, exuding authority despite standing his diminutive stature. “Talking to the Hunger might be a really good idea, actually. Any information we gain might be the key to helping us defeat it later on.”

“Imagine being able to talk to the Hunger! Maybe we can finally figure out what it wants,” Lucretia says. “If it turns out to be too dangerous or not sentient, Merle can just end the spell.”

“Yeah? Okay, well, if it's that important, I'm in. This cycle’s almost over anyway. What’s the worst that could happen?” Merle says, clapping his hands together and starts tugging at his shirt. “Time to prepare.”

Barry walks over to pass on his words of encouragement and tries to talk the dwarf down from stripping for the spell.

Crossing his arms skeptically, Taako glances over at Kravitz who places a hand on his arm supportively. “I can check on him after if anything happens.”

He huffs and crosses his arms. “I guess any information is better than what we have now. Taako's leaving before he can strip down—oh, nope, there goes his shirt.”

After watching everyone else stop Merle from taking off the rest of his clothes, Taako finds himself holding his breath as the cleric starts channelling his spell. For a moment, he can feel an uncomfortable amount of energy build up in the room, and then Merle disappears, leaving only a smoky outline of his existence behind.

“Oh, that's not what I was expecting,” Lup says quietly.

Magnus scratches his head. “Does anyone know how long this is going to take?”

The crew shake their heads and stand around awhile before Davenport returns to the Starblaster _just in case_. Lucretia takes her place at the table, writing furiously about their latest trial, and the rest of them just stand around.

And they wait.

Lup comes to stand next to him, taking his hand in hers, and Barry, a comforting presence next to her. Kravitz comes to stand at his other side, an icy hand brushing lightly, _hesitantly_ , against his.

Without looking away from the Merle-shaped ring of smoke, Taako takes that hand and laces their fingers together, squeezing tight.

Kravitz stiffens in surprise before squeezing back.

For someone with deathly cold hands, Taako can imagine no warmer gesture.

\--

They stand there for a little while longer and then Merle's shape seems to poof out of existence entirely. Kravitz lets go of his hand and steps forward. “Just wait, I'll check on him.”

And then he's gone too.

Lup steps closer and wraps both her arms around his, holding him close. From the other side of the room, Magnus comes over, latching onto Taako's other arm. “Did Merle…did Merle die? Did he even meet the Hunger? What if the spell didn’t work?”

He doesn't answer—doesn’t know how to.

They're all holding their breaths in anticipation and let out a collective sigh of relief when Kravitz reappears. “Merle is fine. I mean, he's dead, but his soul is intact. He was cursing about some human in a fancy suit.”

They all turn to look at the reaper.

Kravitz turns his eyes skyward, not quite rolling them. “I'm not even human anymore.”

“Yes, yes, you're not human. You're a very handsome and well-dressed Grim Reaper who very kindly escorted Merle's soul or whatever to the other side,” Taako says complacently.

That gets him a crooked smile and the shake of a head. “Merle said he didn't get a name. I've brought him to the Astral Plane for now, though I doubt he'll remember anything after his death. He was also insisting on nudity and saying it’s what Pan would want him to do.”

His sister and Magnus both collapse against him, sandwiching and squishing him in place. “He's stripping so that means he’s alright then,” Lup sighs in relief. “I mean, he's dead, but whatever. Let's go try to get the light from the abbess and get ready to jet.”

“I don't think you'll get it that easily, friend,” comes a voice from the doorway.

They look over and Magnus scowls. “Get out of here, Clint McElroy!”

\--

Merle continues to spend the next decade trying time and again to converse with John, dying at the start of every cycle and leaving them without a healer.

Taako looks around the icy crevice he's trapped in and holds his wand up. Lucretia, Magnus, and Kravitz are there, all standing back to back as the narrow slit of sky above turns black. “Lup, did Barold get back to the ship?” he asks into his Stone of Far Speech.

“He's here with the light! Where are _you_?”

“We got held up,” he says, looking at the corpses of frost ogres around them. It’d been a pretty ugly fight and he still doesn't know why they're trying so hard to save this frozen wasteland. “There’s no time left, Lup. Get Cap'n'port to go already. We'll see you in a bit!”

Magnus holds his bleeding side and sighs, “A bit of healing would be nice.”

He arches a brow, sitting pretty on Garyl with a broken leg, the cold and adrenaline keeping the pain at bay for now. “Does it matter? We're about to die anyway.”

From next to him, Kravitz whistles a tune and although it isn't much, a bit of the pain subsides. Magnus exhales and looks down in amazement. “Damn, Kravitz, this is like the opposite of reaping, you know?”

“Damn, son, that's chill,” Garyl whinnies with a nod. “I mean chill as in rad, not because we're here surrounded by ice because I can't register temperature because I'm just a spectral binicorn.”

“It’s super rad. I think you just did more healing than our cleric ever did,” Taako mutters. “What about your spell slots?”

Kravitz shrugs and smiles. “As you said, we're about to die anyway.”

They look up at the tendril coming right for them and Lucretia casts a shield around them. “I hate it when cycles end like this.”

\--

In cycle 47, they finally convince Merle to take a break from dying to submit an entry at the Legato Conservatory.

The group breaks off to work on their submissions and in between his philosophy classes, Taako finds himself wandering around the mountain side, trying to find a way in.

He hears the air behind him tear and asks, “No luck?”

Kravitz shakes his head. “There's a barrier of some kind in the way. I can't cut into it.”

Crossing his arms, he looks up at the mountain and frowns. “I guess that means we'll have to do those submissions after all.”

He can feel the reaper step in close. “You're not enjoying yourself?”

“It's alright, but I just want to make sure, y’know?” Taako says with a shrug. Teaching has been surprisingly enjoyable but it feels like a waste of time in this situation when the Light of Creation isn't in their hands yet. “It's nice having a scribe to write down my pearls of wisdom though. I'll need to bring a copy of it with me for posterity. How are the others doing?”

The reaper looks back towards the conservatory. “They seem to be doing well. I didn’t really want to interrupt Lup and Barry, but Lucretia is painting something and Magnus is working on a wooden duck. He seemed to be struggling. I thought it was nice but he said that was impossible.”

“‘Nothing is impossible, the word itself says “I'm possible”!’” he recites, leaning back against Kravitz, who immediately wraps an arm around his waist to hold him up. “Tell him that the next time you drop by. Tell him that's a freebie from Taako.”

Kravitz laughs. “That's very good.”

He grins, pleased with himself. “Thank you. It comes naturally. It's almost like I did catering for a fantasy meditation retreat.”

\--

Months continue to pass with no luck getting through the mountain's barrier, even with Kravitz's help, and then submission day comes.

One by one, they submit their works, and one by one, their works are broadcasted out into the world.

Despite this, they're barred from the mountain.

Sitting alone on the balcony of his room on campus, Taako's tapping a quill against his cheek, trying to come up with a new way to breach the mountain in the next ten days when he hears the air tear behind him and turns around.

As expected, there's a knock at his door.

He gets up and opens the door and Kravitz is standing there in his usual fancy suit and perfectly polished shoes. “Taako, I’m sorry to disturb you but could you come with me for a bit?”

Blinking, he nods. “Sure, I'm all yours.”

To his surprise, he's led to the stage where they'd all submitted their works earlier that day. Kravitz takes a seat at the piano and gestures for him to sit on the bench next to him.

Curious, Taako takes a seat and waits.

And then Kravitz starts playing.

While he isn't particularly moved by most pieces of music, this one fills him with warmth and comfort, and he finds himself closing his eyes, trying to get closer to the melody somehow. Despite his earlier worries, he finds himself soothed even if just momentarily.

When the song ends, Taako opens his eyes again and tilts his head. “That was beautiful. Is it a secret submission for the mountain?”

Kravitz shakes his head and says softly, “It's not for the mountain.”

“Oh… _oh_ ,” he says a little stupidly, his heart swelling with joy. Unable to hide the goofy grin growing on his lips, he turns around and leans back firmly against the reaper. “In that case, play it again, handsome, because I don't want to forget a single note.”

\--

They keep the nature of their relationship discreet. As so often in the past, Lup provided all the distraction he needed to do as he pleased.

Lup knows, though.

Of course she knows.

“I'm glad, you know, Taako?” she says one night, lying down, facing him.

They don't share a room anymore, but sometimes she'll still show up unannounced and declare that they're have a mini sleepover. He grouses about it every time but can never hide his relief and happiness at having his sister nearby for the night.

Taako opens his eyes and arches a brow. “Glad in general or is there something in specific?”

She reaches over and pinches his cheek. “Both. In general, this crew is something good—something to be glad about despite the Hunger. But more specifically, I'm glad for _you_. We've met all sorts of people, but Kravitz? He's really good, and I think you're really good for each other.”

“He's not a person. He's literally Death,” he points out for lack of witty responses to give.

Lup rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.” Then her expression softens. “I'm happy for you, Taako.”

He averts his gaze sheepishly. “Yeah? How's Barold treating you?”

“Like a queen.”

“As he should,” he immediately replies before laughing. “Looks like we did alright.”

She takes his hands and pulls him in close to touch her forehead to his. “Yeah, Koko, we did real good. We got ourselves a family and even roped in a couple of nerds. I'm proud of us.”

Coming from anyone else, he would've shrugged it off but this is _Lup_ —the one person who's been by his side since the beginning, the other half of his very being. Smiling, he squeezes her hands. “Thanks, Lulu. Me too.”

\--

The next morning, he wakes to the sound of muffled voices and a familiar weight on his chest. Lup is sprawled on top of him and eavesdropping already if her breathing is anything to go by.

“…I came in here to wake Taako up. Does this happen very often?” comes Kravitz's voice.

“Sometimes. I think it's good for them. I mean, they’ve always been together so it’s probably hard for them to be apart for too long,” Barry answers, probably adjusting his glasses.

“For creatures that don't technically need to sleep, they sure are hard to wake,” Kravitz says with amusement in his voice.

Lup purposefully stirs, her arms lifting up. “Maybe if I had some motivation I'd wake up faster. Also, good morning to you nerds too.”

There's a chuckle and his sister is gently lifted up off of him followed by footsteps leading out the door.

“Are you ready for your coffee or should I leave you to your acting?” Kravitz asks gently.

Taako opens his eyes and stretches. “Where's _my_ motivation, hmm? Maybe Taako doesn't feel like getting out of bed today.”

The reaper arches a brow and sets the cup of coffee down on the end table before reaching down to cup his face with icy cold hands, sending a shiver down his spine and a soft yelp out his mouth.

“Oh boy howdy, that's not really what I had in mind,” he says, covering the other man's hands with his own.

Kravitz chuckles and leans down for a kiss. “What about something like this?”

“Much better.” He blinks and looks up. “Hey, your lips are warm.”

After a moment of hesitation, the reaper admits, “I finished my coffee in the hallway just for this.”

Taako throws his head back and laughs, pulling the reaper in close. “We shouldn’t waste it then.”

\--

He dies once more after their visit to the Empty World. The Hunger had come even earlier than the last cycle and they'd been caught off guard. They'd wandered off just a little too far from the ship and he wants nothing more than to kick himself for such a silly mistake after nearly a hundred runs.

“This is the worst,” Taako mutters, hands still wrapped around their freshly caught fish. “We won’t even get to enjoy this thing.”

Merle gives him a reassuring pat on the arm. “We can do grilled fish first thing in the next cycle. How many times will this be, Kravitz?”

Kravitz looks up from planting a kiss on Taako's head. “Fifty-six, Merle. You've got an entire page in my ledger to yourself at this point.”

“I'd hate for you to forget about me what with Taako and the lich-y pair around,” the dwarf says with a grin.

“I wouldn't worry about that,” the reaper reassures him, chuckling. “You’ll always be the biggest bounty in my book.”

There'd been a bit of a rough patch after Kravitz found out about Lup and Barry's spell in the Empty World,  but given their situation with the Hunger growing ever closer, not even the Raven Queen could deny their logic (though her pass came in the form of a bargain as always).

To Taako's other side, Barry heaves a sigh, already in his lich form from an earlier accident.

A thought strikes him as he looks at Barry. “Wait, Barold, if we're both here then—”

The Hunger comes striking down.

When he comes to again, Taako is terrified for his sister.

But she's there.

She's still there.

Sensing his panic, Lup immediately pulls him into a tight hug and Barry kindly ushers the others away. “I'm still here, Taako. I was fine. I knew you two would be coming back,” she reassures him because she knows.

Of course she knows.

Shaken by the experience, Taako vows to stop dying.

Because if he's one of her anchors, he can't afford to die.

Because if she loses control and disappears, she might not come back again.

And where would Taako be without Lup?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!" - Audrey Hepburn (now Taako)
> 
> Thank you for all the lovely comments!! I'm glad you're enjoying this fic :)


	4. Chapter 4

“This is the place?”

Taako shrugs. “It’s as good a place as any. I made it look like a rock for a reason.”

Kravitz gives his hand a squeeze. “Let's hope it works. This could be our new home.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says, dropping the Philosopher's Stone into the well. “Okay, that's done. Let's go back.”

There's a tug. “Taako? What's wrong?”

He looks around at the town with a name he didn't bother to learn. There are people running around and going about their daily business, blissfully unaware of the world beyond their own. While he sees them, he also finds himself looking past them, brain refusing to acknowledge their existence.

“I don't know. I just find it hard to think of anywhere but the Starblaster home,” Taako admits.

He knows he should feel fortunate that Lup's plan worked out here of all places—a place with people, civilization, and a connection to all the different planes. Here, he can actually seeing the crew with a future.

Magnus and Merle would fit right in, they could lead normal lives if they ever wanted to. Magnus could get a dog and Merle could live on the beach. Davenport and Lucretia could open up a school or a library or something to continue their research on the Hunger and the workings of the planar system. Lup and Barry would be hired on as staff, of course, and so would he. Outside the new IPRE, he and Kravitz could start a home, adopt some cats, and not have to wonder how many years they’ll be kept apart.

Glancing over, he asks, “Do you like this world, Kravitz?”

It's the reaper's turn to shrug. “Yes? I suppose it’s not bad. There’s a variety of life, the gods have their worshippers, and the Astral Plane is very well organized. There’s a stockade and everything. I even have a large office now. I’ll have to show you some time.”

Taako smiles. “A fancy office to match your fancy suit? I like that. What about the work though? Does your job feel different after visiting so many worlds?”

Kravitz looks down thoughtfully. “A little, but that's mostly just _your_ souls. Everyone else still dies like they're supposed to, like, what did you call them again? ‘Joe Pastas’?”

Chuckling, he pulls the other man along, away from the well. “Well, maybe after a year our deaths will stick and you’ll finally get to collect our bounties. Maybe after a year this place will feel more like home.”

They walk for a while when Taako suddenly stops. “Oh my god. Krav. _Babe_. Maybe after a year I'll actually have to learn the math here.”

There's stunned silence before the reaper bursts into laughter. “Taako, you're _ridiculous_.”

He grins. “You love me.”

“I do,” Kravitz agrees. “Very much so and I hope I get to make a home with you here.”

“If this turns into home, I'll grow old and wrinkly, you know? You won't get a young, beautiful, perfect Taako at the start of every year anymore,” he points out.

“I think I can live with that—” the reaper immediately raises a hand. “No, stop, don’t you even—”

Laughing, he leans in and asks, “Can you though? Can you really _live_ with that?”

“You know what I mean.” Pulling him in close, Kravitz shakes his head and sighs, the fondness in his expression clear. “I love you, Taako, and nothing’s going to change that. Not even your terrible goofs.”

Taako leans up to plant a kiss on the other man’s lips. “Good because, remember, we’re legally married in at least two systems and one of them’s gone now so divorce is not an option.”

“It never even crossed my mind,” Kravitz says easily. “Maybe if this place works out, we can get married here too. Then you can finally stop telling people that we’re ‘distantly married’.”

He blinks. “Oh.” As the words sink in, he finds himself unable to contain the smile growing on his lips. “I think I’d like that.”

For the first time since they landed, he finds himself hoping their plan will work.

\--

It does but it also doesn't.

Their little celebration at the turn of the year feels unreal. No one except Merle celebrates at their little party onboard. Lup's gone back to stirring the same pot in sullen silence and Barry's here throwing shade at him.

“…because what was the _fucking_ point?” he snaps, bristling, before storming out the door and back to his room.

A soft knock at the door follows quickly behind and he doesn't need to turn to know it's Kravitz. “Taako? Would you rather be alone right now?”

Casting Mage Hand to open the door, he continues glaring at the ceiling. “You can come in but lock the door behind you.”

There's a click and the bed next to him sinks a little under the added weight. “Are you alright?”

“Yes—no—who the fuck knows?” Taako groans, scrubbing his eyes with the ball of his wrists. “Apparently my worries aren't in appropriate proportion to this stupid world. I mean, I feel bad that you're working more than ever because of these things and I feel bad that Lup and Barold and the others feel bad but this was the plan! And it worked! I mean, we're all just waiting for the other shoe to fall, but it _worked_.”

Kravitz doesn't answer, merely listening.

He sits up and runs a hand through his hair—now down to his waist without its yearly reset. “I know it sounds bad, but I don't really care what happens to the people down there. Why should I? This is a mercy compared to the alternative. And if this plan fails? A bunch of them—maybe all of them will die anyway. And then we'll move on like we always do.

“This place means nothing to me,” Taako says quietly, kicking his feet. “I know you wanted this to be home, Kravitz, and I wanted it to be too, but I don't need a world to call home when I already have _this_. I have a place on the Starblaster and it comes with a big, stupid family. I have Lup. And I have you. This is home enough for me.”

An arm wraps around him and he leans in, resting his head on the reaper's shoulder. Fingers card through his hair and Taako melts a little against the gentle touch. The anger drains out of him, leaving him tired and strung out.

“It's not fair. We finally do something right but somehow it feels even worse.”

\--

Lucretia has tears streaming down her face as she pours over her journals, adding and redacting words, each carefully considered before moving onto the next. To complete this task, her work will have to be perfect.

From behind her, Fisher sings and flashes in the tank, providing her with both comfort and dread.

She's been at it for weeks now when she finally closes her last journal and takes a new one out. Two ink pots and quills sit at the ready in front of her as she takes a deep breath and dips the tips in.

In order for this to work, she'll have to do the impossible.

She'll have to make Death forget.

\--

His world comes crashing to an end when Lup disappears with nothing more than a note. For months, he and Barry search for her day after day without success. Her death count doesn't change in Kravitz's ledger, but the reaper can't seem to find her lich form either, so they keep looking.

The other crew members join in the search sometimes and Taako's so caught up in trying to find his missing half that he doesn't notice anything off until it's too late.

Suddenly, he's on his knees with a wand held out and there's a man in front of him, frightened and hurt, smiling in pain as he leans against the railing.

And then he falls.

Taako scrambles over to the railing of the ship and watches the stranger disappear into the clouds below and falls backwards. He needs to find help, needs to try to get a hold of Kravitz, to _warn_ him, but a piercing headache prevents him from getting back up onto his feet.

When the pain finally subsides, he blinks at the unfamiliar sight and wonders when he boarded this ship.

Later, he'll look down at the stone in his hand and wonder who he was trying to call.

\--

Kravitz is organizing his office in the Eternal Stockade, mind adrift. Considering the prison that is now his responsibility, he was lucky to come to such a well-organized place. He's seen worlds where the Astral Plane is overrun with animals and beasts, and others where souls scream in endless pain.

But can he really stay here?

Glancing out the window, he remembers how miserable Taako has been—how miserable the entire crew has been since they dispersed the relics. And now with Lup missing, even beyond _his_ sight, he wonders if it would be better just to pack up and leave.

That way, Taako would get his sister back at least.

Wouldn't he?

Without knowing what happened to Lup, he has no way of ascertaining anything. But to see Taako return to his old self, it'd be worth the try.

Just like how Taako felt most at ease on the Starblaster, with his queen and his wizard by his side, he can make any world feel like home—fancy office or no.

A sudden jolt of pain shoots through his head causing him to double over. Eyes wide, he glances out the window but nothing's changed.

The Hunger isn't here but something is terribly wrong.

Kravitz's head snaps up in alarm when a thought strikes him. “Taako!”

Summoning his scythe, he tears into the air but the pain returns with a vengeance and now he's on his knees, cradling his head. With shaking hands, he tries to pull out black feathers from his pocket but it's too late.

When he comes to again, he'll look up at the rift in the air and wonder where he was trying to go.

\--

From the Celestial Plane, the Raven Queen rages, her darkness spilling out, distorting her form as she feels her ward's pain and confusion.

It's only a gentle light from Istus that keeps her from lashing out at the mortal with the audacity to interfere with her domain.

 _Be still_ , the other goddess’ light tells her.

_Let this story be told._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short update today. Next week's will be longer!


	5. Chapter 5

Something is wrong.

Something has always been wrong.

Taako's never been able to put a finger on it but the feeling never leaves.

His brain has tics sometimes and he can't remember when they started exactly, but he knows it’s not normal. Despite this, he goes out of his way to ignore them. Sometimes they give him headaches, bringing this thoughts to a grinding halt, and when this happens, he makes a note to himself and avoids whatever aggravated them.

Other times, they’re just small, simple things that make him feel forgetful. He’ll do things like sliding a pot over toward the stove only to return to it later to find the food still uncooked, untouched. Or sometimes he'll wake up grasping for a person who isn't there, breathing hard from dreams he can’t recall.

These quirks come so naturally he can’t call them anything but habits. But these habits, passing things around a kitchen? Expecting someone there to wake up to? These suggest domesticity and companionship and Taako doesn't understand how or why his body is doing this because he's always been alone.

Whenever he tries to think deeper into it, there's that twinge in his brain that causes him to lose his train of thought and he knows that if he digs any deeper, he’ll just give himself a headache.

So he stops trying.

Instead, he gets himself a sleeping sack to stop reaching out in his sleep, and he comes up with a spell to flash-fry food for when he forgets to put it on the stove. More than once, he’s had to do it during a show, and the crowd _loved_ it. They ate it all up, his showmanship, his food, and they always came back for more.

So Taako, never one to shy away from the limelight, stepped up and delivered.

For a while, he almost develops a routine, things almost seem to go _well_ , but the feeling of wrongness in his chest never goes away.

And when he loses his show and Sazed, he simply picks himself back up, packs away his guilt, and continues as he's always had:

Alone.

\--

The Craigslist posting was just a way to kill time and make a quick coin but when he sees a large, burly human and a stout older dwarf with flowers braided into his beard, something in his chest eases up. He doesn’t recognize it at first, having lived with it for at least a decade now, but suddenly, it’s like he can _breathe_ again.

Playing with his side braid, he chalks it up to nerves from being on the run for so long and walks over to their table. “Hail and well met, my dudes. Are you here about the posting too?”

The human grins, raising his drink in greeting. “Hail and well met, friend! I'm Magnus Burnsides!” He has a loud, booming voice but there's a warmth in it that’s instantly comforting.

Must be that rustic hospitality he’s heard so much about.

“Merle Highchurch. Pan be with you,” the dwarf says with a small nod. A cleric then. Taako’s doing his best to reserve his judgement when he leans over conspiratorially and whispers, “You guys think I can sneak in a dance before Gundren gets here? I'm almost at _two thousand_ party points!”

A less reverent cleric then, he thinks with a chuckle.

“That’s a lot of party points, my dude,” he says, raising a hand at the bartender to order himself a drink.

Merle nods enthusiastically and brings his Extreme Teen Bible up onto the table. “And it’s all Pan approved!”

He raises a brow. “Well, I can certainly think of plenty of religions that could use some divine partying.”

Magnus lets out a hearty laugh turns to him and asks, “And what's your name, new companion?”

Taako smiles and takes a seat. “I'm Taako the wizard. You know, from TV?”

\--

Things feel less wrong from there.

The three of them seem to work well, fighting their way through the goblin hideout and Wave Echo Cave. And at the end of it all, despite what happened to Phandalin (or what used to be the town of Phandalin), he somehow walks away with a magical umbrella, a near-death experience, and a new job.

The brain tics come a little less frequently after the inoculation and joining the Bureau of Balance. That bit of leeway is enough to help free up his mind enough to pick up more spells. He soaks up the rituals and incantations like he’s known them all along, and the umbrella he picked up only seems to amplify his power.

On a less well-practiced front, for the first time since Sazed, Taako finds himself in the company of other people. He likes Merle and Magnus and they seem to like him just fine, which surprises him because what kind of people just accepts another person like that? Even more surprising, he finds himself accepting them back.

The tightness in his chest eases a little when he’s around the pair, when they laugh off his sharp words and elbow him for saying the wrong thing. And when he gets to know them, parts of it come to him like his spells had.

 _Of course_ Magnus loves dogs.

 _Of course_ Merle fucking loves Kenny Chesney.

Despite being alone for most of his life, he finds himself settling in without a problem with these two. He learns to sleep through Merle's snores and Magnus’ mid-night duck carvings. In turn, they learn to ignore his night terrors.

Magnus tried asking about them once, offered to lend a listening ear or a beefy shoulder to cry on but he shrugged it off. No, thank you, he had said. No tragic folk hero backstory here. Even if he felt any desire to share, he can only ever remember one of them. It was one time he got locked in a cupboard as a child and for the life of him, he can't remember how he got out.

Things also feel less wrong when he has his new umbrella with him. Somehow, it feels both right and wrong. Wrong in the sense that it's not his, but right that it belongs there by his side.

Taako doesn't think too deeply into it.

He's just a simple idiot wizard after all.

\--

Kravitz does a double take when he sees his ledger. With his finger on the page, he counts the number of marks twice just to make sure.

Fifty-seven.

Fifty-fucking-seven.

Going through the rest of his ledger, he triple checks this time and runs a hand through his hair when he sees that there have been no check-ins. Although technically not an escapee, how can a soul possibly die _fifty-seven_ times?

“Well, this won't do,” Kravitz mutters to himself. He doesn't understand why the Raven Queen never brought this to his attention, but he knows what needs to be done.

He raises his scythe and creates a tear and peers in.

The scene before him is pink.

Pink tourmaline to be precise.

Brows furrowing, he shakes his head and closes the rift and rummages through his desk. Finding a small ball of light, he tosses it through a new rift and waits. Soon, the rift ripples and turns into a mirror-like surface, only instead of being reflective, it's looking out into the pink tourmaline room.

And standing there are three suited figures, whispering to a shield.

“Hail and well met!” one of them shouts, looking up and still snickering to himself. “My name is Taako and you look like you're made of salt!”

With the wave of a hand, Kravitz sends the golem over, getting right in the elf's face.

Taako Taaco, eight deaths.

An impressive death count, but not his target today. Even so, there's a flare of _something_ in his chest and he can't help but linger a little bit before moving onto the human.

Magnus Burnsides with his 19 deaths and a steely gaze. Still not his target, so he moves onto the dwarf.

Merle Highchurch. There he is. Mr. Fifty-Fucking-Seven.

With another flick of his hand, he moves the golem back and raises its hand to point.

“You.”

\--

Exhausted and ready to pass out, Taako shuffles into his room and thinks back to their mission in Lucas Miller’s lab today. It'd gone about as well as any of their other missions and even came with the added bonus of turning Magnus’ bottom half into a twirly slide.

More than Legion, more than the brief glimpse into the workings of the world, what he'd been taken aback by was Death.

Striking handsomeness aside, Kravitz felt _right_ —ridiculous work accents and all.

He felt right the same way Magnus rushing in felt right, the same disturbing way Merle seducing plants felt right. Somehow, those were all different from the way it felt right to promise Angus McDonald magic lessons or the way Carey and Killian fit together.

Barry Bluejeans felt right.

Bugbears, while great hug bears, did not.

The information regarding the planar system felt right.

Mr. Upsy, on so many levels, did not.

Mixed feelings included his Umbra Staff, Madame Director, and Davenport.

Try as he might, he can’t find the pattern here in the seemingly random assortment of rightness he’s accumulated in the last little while. Playing with his braid, he paces the length of his room, trying to get his brain to solve the puzzle that’s been laid before him.

Suddenly, he hears a faint whirring coming from his bag and frowns. Crouching down to dig through the items, he finds the fuse Lucas handed him. Giving it a shake, he finds it unlit and empty but the noises don't stop.

Taako holds it up to his ear and he hears a soft, lifeless voice.

_“I saw all of existence, all at once…”_

Getting up, he rushes to his desk for some something to write with.

_“I saw seven birds: the Twins.”_

His brain has one of its tics and his hand stops to gingerly try to massage the headache away.

When he looks up again, the machinery has since grown silent and only the first few lines of the cryptic message had been messily written down. He lets out a groan of frustration before crawling into bed to sleep the headache off.

\--

Pacing in his office, Kravitz reads through his ledger, suddenly filled with new names, all centering around a single town in the middle of nowhere.

And three very familiar names.

He runs a hand through his hair, trying to imagine how the Millers’ lab could possibly be connected to a town like Refuge. His brain, for its many lifetimes’ worth of knowledge draws a blank.

Or, it hits a snag.

Brows furrowing, he summons a scythe and considers which of the three he should pay a visit to.

Probably not Merle after the whole arm thing even if he didn't seem particularly miffed about it at the end. Getting a proper explanation out of him could pose a challenge he wasn’t in the mood to meet. Magnus seemed social enough, somehow outplaying him even while trapped under the mirror. While Magnus seemed nice, Taako was _stimulating_. He asked questions and challenged his rules and, at one point, threatened to assault him with tentacles.

A chuckle makes its way past his lips before he can stop it.

Taako it is then.

He walks over to his desk and pulls out the small light he'd deployed in the lab before thinking better of it. No, this warrants a personal visit.

Swinging down with his scythe, he tears a rift open and steps through into an empty living quarter. He takes a seat on the sofa and looks around and sees several doors leading to what he assumes to be private quarters and wonders what the three men did to earn themselves such esteemed positions.

Then the door from the hallway enters and Taako walks in, looking a little dusty and battered but otherwise unharmed. The elf hangs up his cloak, brushing some of the dirt off of it and then his skirt. Then, as if sensing his presence, he turns around with his umbrella raised.

Kravitz watches from the sofa with interest as Taako narrows his eyes and scans the room until they land on him. A little weary but alert, the elf slowly lowers the umbrella.

“Hello, I wasn’t expecting a late-night visit from Death. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Taako asks, his free hand reaching up to play with the end of his braid.

His heart warms at the gesture and he hates that he doesn’t understand why.

He shakes the thought from his head and clears his throat. “Well, we need to talk, don't we?”

Taako nods slowly. “Listen, I have a pretty good idea what the topic is and that’s going to take a while to explain everything. So tell you what, be a dear and put the kettle on while I go change.” A pause. “We’re not going to fight, are we?”

Furrowing his brows, Kravitz shakes his head. “No? I just came to talk.”

“Great, I’ll change into my comfy pants then. Go put on the kettle, please. Feel free to look around or whatever.”

By the time he realizes what he’s doing, the water is already being heated and he decides to take a moment to take a better look around the room. “Taako, why are there so many wooden ducks?”

“That’d be Magnus. He loves carving those ducks. Does it when he’s bored. Does it when he can’t sleep. I think those ones are supposed to be everyone in the Bureau of Balance,” the elf replies from his room.

Funny. He has one just like the ones lining the cupboard in his office, sitting pretty on his desk with little red eyes and a miniature scythe tucked under a wing. It’s been there for as long as he can remember and it never occurred to him that someone might’ve hand carved it.

“Bureau of Balance? That’s what this place is called then?” Kravitz asks back.

“Hang on,” Taako says, poking his head out of his room. “You heard what I said? It wasn’t all static and fuzz? What about voidfish or Grand Relic? Did you hear that?”

Kravitz furrows his brows in confusion. There’s something there at the back of his mind, an old memory covered in dust, stubbornly refusing to come loose. He concentrates on it for a moment but loses his grasp on it and frowns. “Yes? What do those words have to do with anything? Taako, I don’t understand—”

“Excellent, that will make things easier. I guess this must be one of those perks of working under the goddess of death or just being immortal in general, huh? No censorship.”

“I wouldn’t be very good at my job if people could hide information from me so easily,” he concedes.

“I’m sure that speaks volumes to your dedication and work ethics. Just wait.” Disappearing back into his room, the elf re-emerges shortly in colourful but less adventure-ready clothes and walks over to the kettle. “You want some tea, Bone Daddy?”

Nearly tripping over his own feet, he whirls around. “Wha—what did you just say?”

Taako snickers. “I just asked if you wanted tea. Well, you’re getting a cup anyway because Taako’s about to take you on a journey, my man.”

He finds himself smiling despite himself. “I…a cup of tea and a journey sounds lovely.”

\--

“No, Taako. This cannot be how we end our third date.”

The statement would sound more foreboding if not for the barely concealed smile on the reaper’s face.

Taako grins and waggles his eyebrows. “You can’t say you’re not tempted to though.”

A snicker escapes Kravitz’s lips even as he shakes his head. “No. I refuse to wager the soul of Angus McDonald, especially over a game of Uno.”

“Ango’s a good kid. He wouldn’t mind,” he tries, looking down at all the plus-fours in his arsenal. “Especially if I win.”

“Correction: he would mind very much either way and then you’ll feel terrible.” Kravitz leans back in his seat, taking a sip of wine. “Why don’t we wager something else?”

Leaning forward, he rests his head on the back of his hand and asks, “Oh? Like what?”

Kravitz’s face reddens a little. He fidgets with his cards and eventually shrugs. “Like a goodnight kiss maybe?”

His grin widens despite feeling his own ears burning up. “No need for that, my dude. I wasn’t planning on letting you leave without getting one out of you.”

Perking up, Kravitz blinks before a goofy smile begins to spread on his lips. “Oh…still no to Angus McDonald’s soul though.”

\--

Humming to himself in his office, Kravitz thinks back to the dimly lit chamber of the Raven Queen’s temple where that dusty piano sat. He doesn’t remember the town outside as well as he should, but after having visited thousands of towns and cities over the course of so many years, even the keenest memories become blurred and misplaced.

Fingers tapping lightly on his desk in a silent melody, he frowns for a moment, trying to place where he’d heard the song from. Slowing down the motions, he carefully examines the tune as he pretends to play each key. It comes too easily to him for it to be an original piece, but try as he might, its origins elude him.

The song brings forth feelings of warmth and closeness and a burst of shy exuberance, and it brings a smile to his face despite not understanding it completely.

Suddenly, a raven lands at the window and caws.

He’s being summoned for a new bounty.

Opening his ledger to find the latest addition to it, Kravitz bypasses the page taken up by one Merle Highchurch and pauses at the next page when he sees Taako’s name and smiles to himself. With the flick of his scythe, he creates a rift to his next job and steps through, still humming.

Maybe Taako would like to hear this song.

\--

Taako wakes up with a gasp, his arm shooting out, fingers grasping. For a decade now, he's done this and woke up feeling alone and empty, fingers caught inside the sides of his sleeping sack, but this time he finds purchase.

An arm.

The figure underneath him stirs. “Taako? Darling, are you alright?”

Awake and disoriented, he tightens his grip and an arm wraps around his waist. “I'm fine,” he says, burying his head into the soft fabric underneath him. “Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. It must've been a dream. I don't remember. Sorry.”

With over a month of practice, Kravitz merely makes a sleepy noise and holds him a little closer, placing a light kiss on his head. “You're fine.”

He remembers their first few tries at just sleeping in the same bed and how horribly awkward it’d gone. With both of them all too aware of the other's presence, neither of them ended up getting any sleep.

Not that Kravitz needed sleep in the first place.

Honestly, what kind of nerd sleeps in a dress shirt?

It wasn't until their third try that they broke into laughter at the ridiculousness of it all and Taako crawled over him and firmly plopped down.

A little hesitantly, a hand brushed against his own and he reached out and slotted their fingers together. With less hesitation, Kravitz's other arm rested against his waist. “Oh, this is nice,” the reaper muttered.

“Yeah,” Taako agreed, “I could get used to this. Just to warn you in advance though, I sometimes get nightmares so let me know if that’s gonna be weird for you.”

Kravitz seemed to think his words over seriously before giving his hand a squeeze. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

Now coming down from a dream he can’t recall, Taako reaches down and finds one of Kravitz’s hands. Even while mostly asleep, the reaper takes his hand and holds it tight and Taako can’t help but smile. Tilting his head up, he gives the man’s chin a kiss and closes his eyes.

For a decade now, he’s never been able to get back to sleep after one of his nightmares. But now, surrounded by warmth, however borrowed, it feels safe and _right_ and he finds himself quickly lulled back to sleep.

\--

Something is wrong.

The way the colour drains just ever so slightly from the clouds is wrong, the way the Eternal Stockade seems to go dull is wrong.

Kravitz paces back and forth outside the prison, fretting. He knows that the Tres Horny Boys (honestly, what a name) are currently out on a mission to retrieve one of the relics Taako had told him about previously.

He knows they’re out on a mission but that doesn’t explain why he couldn’t reach them. It hadn’t been a problem in Lucas Miller’s lab even when it’d been transmuted into pink tourmaline, so he can only assume that whatever mission they’re on, it’s somehow worse.

After failing to reach Taako on the Material Plane, he decided to return briefly to the Astral Plane to check up on the souls in the stockade when things started going dull and grey.

He continues pacing, distracted, trying to make sense of everything.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that all the souls that normally dance atop the lake have retreated into the water and were now waiting, restless.

No, not restless.

Scared.

Then he looks up.

There are black clouds in the sky, roiling, angry and thick like a sea of tar. For a moment, they seem to go still, and then tendrils begin reaching down.

As they close in, Kravitz summons his scythe but then winces, a sharp pain shooting through his head. That nagging feeling in the back of his mind finally bursts free, filling his head with information he’d forgotten for so many years now.

And when he looks up again, he can put a name to the thing.

It’s the Hunger.

\--

“Trust Barry. Love Barry. Taako, it’s—it’s me. It’s…! It’s _me_.”

There are tears of joy in his eyes that he can't explain as the little voice in his head speaks. It feels more right than anything he’s come across so far and it called his _name_.

They’re standing outside of Barry’s lich hideout and waiting for the orb to bring them back to the bureau. He has an amnesiac man in his pocket spa and Magnus is currently (and possibly permanently) a _mannequin_ and somehow, none of that seems to matter.

The voice seems to fade and try as he might, Taako can’t seem to bring it back into focus. He goes through all his workarounds he’s developed for those mental blocks but nothing works. His brain seems to fight him, filling his mind with faint memories, distorted beyond recognition, but he knows it’s memories of this person who felt so _right_. Trying to push past the barrier of this second voidfish, he opens his mouth and a word comes out but all he hears is static.

Just like when Magnus was speaking earlier, only this felt _more_.

This felt personal.

Merle turns around. “Did you say something, Taako?”

Shaking his head, he cradles his head, throbbing painfully from that attempt. Retracting his thoughts to safer topics, he waits for the headache to subside. At least now he knows he’s missing something. At least he knows there’s something to remember.

They looks up to see the orb flying down to retrieve them. “Looks like this is it. If you two guys are going, I’m not gonna let you go without me,” Merle says.

Magnus steps forward, his wooden demeanor somehow determined. “Let's do this, guys.”

Taako steps forward, still hesitant. “Yeah, okay. Fuck it. Let's go.”

He needs to know who that voice belongs to.


	6. Chapter 6

When Taako drinks the second voidfish's ichor, the information is overwhelming at first, but then he can suddenly see clearly again. No more tics, no more mental blockades stopping his thoughts.

He can _think_.

And he can remember.

And he's _furious_.

He’s furious at Lucretia for betraying his trust and taking everything he had away, at the voidfish for its powers, at himself for not stopping it somehow—for letting himself forget _Lup_.

How could he forget Lup?

How could he forget his one constant companion, the other half of his life, his _sister_?

When no one else cared, Lup had been there.

Lup was there when he'd been locked in the cupboard, melting the door away, metal lock and all with her fury. Lup was there on the road when they decided to leave. Lup was there with him, holding his hand at the IPRE Academy when they got called in for filling a single application form for the both of them.

Lup was on the Starblaster with him for a century. They finally found themselves a home, a _family_ , and she had been _proud_ of them.

Everything was fine so long as he had Lup.

With his brain finally working at full capacity again and tears streaking his face, Taako gets up and points his sister's umbrella at the perpetrator.

“Ten.”

\--

His office has been overturned, looking for the means to return to the Material Plane. Little globes of lights line his desk, useless and inert. His calls to the Raven Queen have gone unheard and outside the stockade, the Hunger continues to devour.

Suddenly, there's a distant but familiar feeling, one he's only felt in the Legato Conservatory. A song and a story fills his head and he watches the crew of the Starblaster and their century-long journey.

He sees the years they spent without him and catches glimpses of himself in the cycles he joined them. He watches the love of his life and undeath struggle and fight. He remembers the Hunger encroaching ever closer, ever faster.

When the song ends, running a hand through his hair, Kravitz stalks down to where the wayward souls he's imprisoned for a decade reside, the cape of his cowled hood fluttering behind him.

He needs to find a way to get to Taako. If the elf doesn't remember, if none of the crew of the Starblaster remember, they won’t stand a chance. And they don't leave in time then it really will be the end.

The stockade is silent, all the souls preoccupied with the chaos happening outside. The still waters of the endless lake appear to be churning with blackness and the skies continue to be shadowed.

“Souls here in the Eternal Stockade. _Legion,_ ” Kravitz calls out. At once, he can feel their attention on him. “The world as you once knew is about to come to an end. You all heard the song, seen the story. The entity outside, that's the Hunger, and its only goal is to devour.”

The souls grow restless, faint blurs of greyness shifting without ever moving.

“It will devour this plane. It will devour this stockade given enough time and all of us inside. While it does that, it will also devour the world of the living. All of your loved ones, your friends and family, everyone and everything you wanted to break out to see? They will be gone. There will be no chance of you ever seeing them again. Not here, not anywhere.”

A deep roar comes seemingly from all directions, outraged and mournful.

Kravitz brings forth his scythe. “Here is my proposal: help me fight it. Help me defend those still living. I need to find a way out of this plane but when I do, I will need an army with me to even stand a chance against this thing. And even then, there are no guarantees. In return, if we succeed, I will see to it that your sentences are shortened.”

Through the sound of hundreds of voices speaking all at once, he hears the voice of Maureen Miller. “Even without that, we will fight this hunger for our living ones. Release us.”

He nods and slams his scythe down onto the ground. All the cells in the stockade slam open and he watches as grey forms amass into a singular being and roars.

Now all he has to do is find a way to cross over.

Suddenly, he feels the power of his goddess surge through him and blinks. _Go_ , a familiar, comforting voice seems to say within him. It’s the same voice that called to him when he lay dying in that dark, silent temple. It’s the same one that’s beckoned him to its service, offering him comfort and console so many times before now.

Raising his scythe in the air, he swings down and watches a rift open.

 _Go to them_.

Without waiting, he runs through.

And he finds himself in on expanse of sapphire.

At the edge, Taako is staring at him in disbelief and then he starts running, hat flying off his head.

Kravitz rushes forward and scoops the elf up into his arms as they meet in the middle. “Taako, I was trying to get a message to you!”

Taako pulls him in for a kiss and holds him tight. “Sorry, Barold broke our Stones of Far Speech for espionage.”

In between laughter and kisses, he manages, “Taako, I remembered! I'm so sorry, how could I have ever forgotten you?”

“Krav, you literally have nothing to be sorry about—well, maybe the thing with Merle's arm but that's not my problem. We, uh, holy _shit_. I just, _how_ did we find each other again?”

Kravitz shakes his head in disbelief. “I don’t know. All I know is you felt so _right_. It couldn’t have been anyone but you, Taako.”

The wizard reaches up and brushes loose strands of his hair away. “I could say the same for you, handsome.”

Suddenly remembering where they were, he looks down at the sapphire ground and asks, still unable to stop smiling, “What happened here? Did you do this? How?”

“I was rad, natch. You're talking to the world's greatest transmutation wizard, remember?” Taako grins. “By the way, I like what you’ve done with your look. I like the hood. It’s a nice touch. And you did your work accent on us!”

He sneaks in another kiss. “Was it okay?”

Throwing his head back in laughter in the way he’s never been able to look away from, Taako cups his face and gives him a long kiss. “Babe, it was _perfect_. I loved every second of it.”

In front of them, Lup and Barry make their way over. He sets Taako back down, arms still wrapped around his waist, and watches as the lich form of his sister puts his wizarding hat back on. “Lup, Barry, you're alright. I'm,” he says a little breathlessly from the sheer _joy_ he’s feeling, “I'm glad you're back, Lup.”

“It's good to be back, Ghost Rider,” Lup says with a smile in her voice. “You two are the most ridiculous nerds. I can't believe you forgot everything and still managed to date each other again. You know I’m going to need details, right?”

Behind them, emerging from the center of the sapphire, Legion rises up with a roar, fully formed and _furious_.

Smiling ruefully, he places a kiss on the Taako's head. “That'd be my undead army. Sorry, I should go do my job.”

Taako stares at him, mouth agape. “Damn, Kravitz, that's badass! And hot! I am _so_ in love with you right now.”

“I _have_ reaped a lot of souls during my time here,” he says with a chuckle.

“Well, we'll be here fighting and I think Davenport's gone off with a small child to look for Lucretia,” Barry says with a sheepish wave. “Maybe we'll finally win. Or, if not, I guess hopefully see you in another cycle, Kravitz.”

Kravitz nods. “I’ll do what I can with Legion.” With a final kiss, he smiles. “Darling, it's so good to see you. Stay safe. I'll come find you after.”

\--

He stands away from the tearful group hug on the Starblaster despite Magnus’ prompting. Lucretia glances over at him, apologetic and understanding. Expression shuttering, he walks away.

Behind him, he hears Lup say, “Lucretia, dear, I've already forgotten about the whole thing.” Then more softly, “Well, I can forgive you for everything except one. The umbrella thing's fine, the voidfish thing? Whatever. I can't believe you made people drink its fluid, that's _hilarious_. But…you made Taako think he was _alone_ this whole time. I don't think I'm ready to move past that just yet.”

“I understand. I understand completely and I _am_ sorry,” Lucretia replies solemnly. “Even if it takes the rest of my life, I will find a way to make things right with you, Lup. The both of you. I promise.”

Lup smiles. “I know you will. I have zero doubts there. For now, let's start with stopping the Hunger.”

Taako pretends not to hear any of it, studying the ship, disused but well-kept over the years. Without walking over or heading up, he already knows where all the coffee stains in the lab are. He knows there are burn marks on the kitchen wall from that time they stupidly let Merle cook with fire.

This used to be his _home_.

From behind, Lup floats over and says quietly, “Barry and I are going to stay here and fight. You go help them, okay? They need you.”

“That’s a given,” he replies with a huff. “Am I—I'm not going to lose you again.”

“Never. Never again,” Lup says, doing the best approximation of a hug as she can. “Hey.”

He looks up. “Yeah?”

She seems to smile. “You did good without me. You’ll never have to again, but I'm really proud of you.”

The words fill his chest with warmth. He's made a lot of people proud in the last decade but none of their words ever had an effect like this. Taking a shuddering breath, he nods. “Natch. But never again.”

“No, never again,” she agrees. “And now we're going to save the world, Koko.”

Taako smiles. “Hell yeah we are, Lulu.”

\--

 

Epilogue:

Sometimes, Taako wakes up wondering where his sister went, and sometimes, Lup wakes up tearing at black curtains that are no longer there.

It’s a non-decision for them to move in together, neither of them willing to be too far apart from the other. The hardest choice they had to make was how big they wanted to make the dining room.

Giving the sauce a taste, Taako slides it over to his left and starts on the next dish. He hears a fire start and the pot slide onto the stove.

“I've finished setting up the table, sir!” Angus announces with a smile.

“Great job, little man, now go keep Merle away from the kitchen,” he calls out.

From next to him, Lup says, “Magnus, be a dear and use those burly arms to bring this out for me.”

“You got it!” There's a grunt and footsteps leading away.

Although he'd been hesitant, at Lup’s encouragement, he began cooking for people again. He started small, just meals for the people in the house, his reasoning being that they were already undead so he wasn't exactly tempting fate. Then little by little, he began inviting people over, making snacks for Angus, simple dishes and desserts for Magnus and Merle to bring home.

This will be the first time he's cooked for a crowd since Glamour Springs—no magic though, just fresh ingredients.

“Last up is the fish,” Taako says, finally looking up from his work. “Should we make it a show?”

Lup grins. “You know it.”

They carry the tray out to the dining room where their friends and family have gathered and are waiting in anticipation. The table is lined with freshly prepared food and drink and he pretends not to notice the leg missing from the turkey.

Somewhere to the side, a rift opens up and Kravitz and Barry step through. Quickly giving him a peck on the cheek, Kravitz apologizes, “Sorry I'm late. Cultists can be _so_ inconsiderate.” Then he looks around and smiles. “Wow, this looks amazing.”

Taako smiles and inspects their handy work. “It does, doesn't it? And you're just in time for the show.”

Flames engulf Lup's hands as one by one, the fish go flying towards her. There's a bright flash and a flurry of flames as the fish are juggled about in the air before landing squarely on the plates set up in front of her, charred to perfection.

There's a round of applause and Lup takes a bow. “Well? What are you all waiting for? Dinner's served!”

Watching their guests eat, Taako takes his sister's hand and says, “We nailed it.”

“Hell yeah, we knocked that shit right out the park!” she says, pulling him along. “C'mon, Taako, let's eat before all the good stuff's gone!”

The party goes well into the night before the guests eventually go slinking off home or to one of the guestrooms. Lucretia has a meeting to attend in the morning and Davenport bids them goodnight before returning to his boat while Merle and Pringles are passed out on the couch with blankets draped over them.

Making his way upstairs, he watches Carrie and Killian slip out of the guestroom Magnus has unofficially claimed as his own, quietly closing the door behind them. Upon seeing him, they give him a thumbs up, signalling that they've successfully lugged the human onto his bed.

Taako returns the thumbs up and watch them retire to their room. Sliding into his own room, he finds Kravitz hanging up his suit jacket and getting ready for bed.

“Babe, did you put Ango to bed?” he asks quietly, eyelids already feeling heavier by the minute.

Kravitz nods. “He was out the second his head hit the pillow.” Walking over, he places a kiss on the top of his head. “You did great today, Taako. That meal was amazing.”

Smiling, Taako quickly changes out of his clothes and crawls into bed. “It was pretty dope, wasn't it?”

It takes a while for him to locate the reaper in the endless expanse of _bed_.

He and Lup had opted for the largest beds they could find, long enough to fit an ogre and wide enough to comfortably accommodate a family of six. Neither Kravitz nor Barry questioned their decision, and more than once, they've had to trek across the house to find their partner asleep, curled up against their twin only to join them on the oversized bed.

“Y'know, I found the start of a wrinkle today. It's right by my eye,” Taako says solemnly. “This is the worst thing that's happened to me since Wonderland. _Look_!”

Facing him, Kravitz studies his face closely. “Taako, I don't see anything.”

Pointing at the corner of his eye, he says, “Look closer! This is what happens when Taako doesn't get a reset at the start of every year.”

“Do you miss it?” the reaper asks. “The resets? The Starblaster? I know it’s gone now, but it _was_ your home.”

Flipping onto his back to stare at the ceiling, he says, “Yeah, I guess? I mean, not the part where we got chased to our deaths, but yeah, that was a century of my life.” Taako glances over and quickly adds, “ _But_ , I have an even bigger family now. And I still have Lup. And I still have you. Kravitz, this _is_ home.” He frowns. “Fuck, I’ve even learned the _math_ here.”

Kravitz chuckles and pulls him in close. “Taako, you’re _ridiculous_.”

He grins. “You love me.”

“I do,” Kravitz agrees with a smile. “Very much so and I’m glad we finally made it home.”

Taako leans in to the kiss and shakes his head in disbelief. “Yeah, we did it. We’re home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that! Thanks for coming along on the ride!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy! I'll be posting updates on Sunday nights/Mondays


End file.
